Arroyo English School

The woman in the picture is our Mexican friend, Anna, who asked us to help her develop an English school on Saturdays in the arroyo just to the north of our town,San Jose. The arroyo is a place in our town where very poor families have built tar paper shack houses in which to live. There is no running water or plumbing. Arroyos are a geographic feature that form in areas that have hurricanes. Water rushes down these dry stream beds when tropical storms and hurricanes advance. I knew about the arroyos because there are efforts made to evacuate these people when storms are predicted to hit. Anna took my friend Mary Ellen and me to the arroyo last week after we went to the movies together to see the living conditions. Anna owns a small restaurant here in town and employs people who live in the arroyo. Her dream of starting an English Saturday school came true today. The public schools do not teach English and people who speak some English can get better jobs here in town.

We started today with materials Mary Ellen provided: a couple of books and some flash cards to teach colors, and we made each child a card with his or her name on it. Dennis, also in the picture, taught the kids to count to ten in English. Harry read them one of the books Mary Ellen sent with us, and I taught them some color words. Anna spoke in Spanish to direct the kids on what we wanted them to do and another friend, Priscilla, a retired nurse, made the name tags. When we arrived, about 12 children were patiently awaiting us. As the lessons progressed several more appeared until we had 16 children all eager and well behaved. A few adults appeared as well.

We will go again next Saturday and then again on future Saturdays when we return to Mexico after our Florida Christmas. We are going to try to collect some more blankets from people here at Laguna Vista because nights are cool here now and the children are cold without blankets. Mary Ellen had collected a few blankets that we took with us today. Bill has promised to take me to a teacher store in Sarasota. I have no materials or books for teaching little ones. We really had no idea what to expect today, we only wanted to support our friend Anna. It was an amazing experience to say the least.